Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Have You Made Progress On Your 2024 Genealogy Goals?

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. 

1)  Marian B. Wood wrote a blog post, Halfway Through 2024: Genealogy Progress and Plans, to assess her progress to date in 2024.  This is an excellent idea for an SNGF challenge.

2)  How are you doing with your genealogy goals for 2024?  If you did not make goals for 2024, what goals do you hope to achieve in the rest of the year?

3) Tell us about your goals in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status  post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

Here's mine (original goals in green, achievements in purple):

1)  Write weekly "52 Ancestors" and/or "52 Relatives" genealogical sketches, and to add them to my Ancestry Member Tree and to the FamilySearch Family Tree life stories.

I think I missed one week, but excellent!  An A grade.

2)  Write weekly "Amanuensis Monday" and "Seavers in the News" transcription posts for Seaver persons in my database, and add the record transcriptions to profiles in my family tree.

I think I missed one week, but excellent!  An A grade.

3)  Research descendants of my 4th great-grandparents, mainly to support finding lines to my DNA matches.  Write 6-generation reports for lines that are nearly complete.

I have slowed down in this effort, but work on descendants occasionally.  I have been adding more ancestral families on the "new" Partridge line, dscovered from the first FamilySearch Full-Text Search I did!  I wrote no 6-generation descendants reports.  A D grade.

4)  Search Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, Findmypast and American Ancestors for new information to add relationships, events, names, dates, places, sources, images and notes to the profiles in my RootsMagic family tree.  

I use Ancestry and FamilySearch extensively every week, but not the other sites that much due to the availability of specific record collections.  I've been using the "Task list" in RootsMagic to organize and document my search results, in addition to adding events, sources and notes.  A B grade. 

5)  Create PDF ancestry reports for ancestral families of myself and my second great-grandparents, plus descendant reports for key surname groups, using genealogy software and put them on Scribd (I last did this in 2012).  Do it for my wife's ancestry also.  

I'm still looking for the "best" family tree software to do this task - I wish they all could do what Family Tree Maker 16 did!  Family Tree Maker 2019 seems to come the closest to what I want to do.  So, I haven't done much on this so far in 2024.  A D grade.

6)  Publish the StoryWorth book that I have written 40 stories for and gift them to my daughters and grandchildren.  Write stories for another StoryWorth book compiling some of my "Wordless Wednesday" blog posts.

I started the year off by editing and embellishing the stories I wrote, and added some more photographs, but I have not made any effort to publish the book.  A D grade.

7)  Work on the photograph collections on the computer, and do enhancement and colorization using MyHeritage and Ancestry photo tools as necessary.  Share not-seen-before photos on "Wordless Wednesday" blog posts.  Add more family photos to my RootsMagic family tree and FamilySearch Family Tree profiles.

This task has been "hit and miss" all year.  I keep finding photographs in my family file folders and surname file folders that are not in the "My Pictures" file folder.  So I copy them to "My Pictures," and use the MyHeritage Photo tools to enhance and colorize them, and save the modified photos too.  I have re-organized the "My Pictures" folder to add photos from years before 1999, and I have shared photos weekly on the Wordless Wednesday theme.  I have not added many photos to my RootsMagic tree or the FamilySearch Family Tree.  A B grade.

8)  Chase more autosomal DNA matches to find common ancestors when possible using AncestryDNA ThruLines, MyHeritage ToFRs, and my "skeleton tree" on Ancestry.  

This task is almost every day - I check my new Ancestry DNA Matches every day, add Notes to those with a known common ancestor and with high value cMs.  I add the lines to my DNA matches when I know them from AncestryDNA, MyHeritageDNA, FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe.  I make lists of  the AncestryDNA "Common Ancestor" matches every two months using the WikiTree DNA Match Table spreadsheet developed by Greg Clarke.  Finding my 4th great-grandmother Mary Partridge earlier this year added a number of previously unknown DNA matches with a Partridge and/or Wakeman line.   An A grade.

  

9)  Make more photograph slide shows for myself, Linda, my parents, and my grandparents, including photographs and records to tell their stories.  Narrate Zoom videos of the slide shows and share them on my YouTube channel with my family members.

Um, I haven't done anything here except think about doing these tasks when I find another round tuit.  An F grade.

10)  Investigate the best uses of Artificial Intelligence to create historical biographies of myself and my ancestors.  

I have used the Ancestry and MyHeritage AI Biography tools, but find they are too limiting to do a decent genealogical sketch.  I used ChatGPT to take a list of events for a person to create a biography of the person, and that works, but the result is not as extensive as I would like.  I used the EmulateMe avator tool to create a talking Randy - ask him a question and he will answer in his own voice, based on the photograph and 20 page biography I uploaded; I like this, but am worried about scam issues.   I have written genealogy-related poems and songs that tell ancestor stories using ChatGPT and Suno.  A B grade.

11)  Serve the Chula Vista Genealogical Society (CVGS) on the Board of Directors as newsletter editor and Research/DNA chair, organize and present monthly Research Group and DNA Interest Group meetings on Zoom, and attend and contribute to the in-person education group meetings.

I missed a Board meeting and an Education meeting, but have attended every CVGS program meeting, research group and DNA interest group meeting.  An A- grade

12)  Watch more Family Tree Webinars and YouTube videos, attend CVGS, SDGS and WAGS program Zoom meetings, and attend RootsTech 2024 virtually, in order to keep up-to-date with research techniques, and new genealogy industry features.

I attended RootsTech 2024 virtually, and have attended most SDGS program meetings and several WAGS meetings, plus several GSSCC meetings.  I review over 100 YouTube channels every week and watch the most interesting videos.  An A- grade.

===============================

Only 12 goals, and they were all achievable.  I think I've done pretty well so far this year.  Several other "important new things" have popped up to interfere with the pursuit of some of my 2024 goals. 

==============================================

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2024/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-have-you.html

Copyright (c) 2024, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.